It is known to attempt to sell goods using television or other media. This is typically done by showing a product on television with an accompanying price. The goods seller will then allow anyone to call in by telephone and to make a purchase of the product which is displayed on television. Such systems can either allow the user to telephone in at any time, or may only allow them to call in and order whilst it is on screen. The former system has a disadvantage that there is no time incentive for a person to ring and they can easily watch through several products being sold before deciding whether to buy. The second system helps give an incentive for someone to telephone in immediately to buy a product, but it suffers the disadvantage that only a certain number of calls can be processed during the time in which the product is on screen and therefore both television broadcasts spectrum capacity and telephone network capacity must be simultaneously consumed for the entire time for which it is desired to sell a single product. This is technically inefficient.
It is also known in the UK to attempt to conduct auctions having non-fixed prices on television. This brings an advantage of a timing incentive when people ring. However, these suffer the disadvantage that a user going through the order, buying and registration process takes considerable time to do so and therefore consumes telephone network capacity. Since it is necessary for the entire auction process to be televised, the slowness of completing each sale slows the auction and hence consumes a large amount of television network capacity. One alternative to this is to only allow pre-registered users to play therefore speeding up the timing of the auction. This alternative has the disadvantage that non-registered users cannot take part in the auction.
Another type of auction is a reverse auction. Implementing this onto television screens will be problematic because the auction ends only after all units have been purchased. The final price is set when the final unit sells, sometimes being the same for all winning participants. This is problematic since it cannot be determined whether a unit has been allocated until after someone goes through the registration and buying procedure. Accordingly it takes a significant length of time when using a medium such as television which leads to inefficient usage of capacity.
Even when sales on television go onto the next unit before all the ordering is finished they cannot use the same telephone number as for the previous product. This is because the telephone number is used to distinguish between products and therefore those ringing a certain telephone number will be assumed to be buying a certain product. Changing the product that corresponds to the telephone number midway through ordering can cause confusion as to which product the user is attempting to buy.
It is also problematic to keep control of the numbers of units being sold versus the amount in stock. It is relatively easy with known auction systems to oversell products. It is also quite possible to undersell products. In these circumstances products are inefficiently left unsold within the desired television and telephone network capacity usage, even though there may be other people attempting to take part in the auction who might be interested in buying them. In order to get round this problem it is necessary to keep a continuous monitor on each call so that if a call eventually leads to a sale, it can be known that that caller should not be targeted for reselling unsold products. This is technically inefficient and expensive as each call must be monitored throughout its time and all details for each call stored in a single database entry.
It is also known to sell products over the Internet but such users do not get the interactive descriptions of products that accompany television selling.
It is an object of the present disclosure to mitigate some of the problems mentioned above. It is also an object by technical solutions to some of the technical problems mentioned above to enable a more efficient system to be used.
According to the first aspect of the disclosure there is provided a method of conducting a telephone based reverse auction for selling units where the reverse auction is transmitted to users on a medium, the method comprising the steps of providing a number of units for sale and storing a preliminary available quantity in an allocation database initially indicative of the number provided for sale, providing a telephone number to which calls from callers can be placed to enter the reverse auction, recording the time at which one or more calls were received on the telephone number in a call record in a call database, placing each caller into a queue and assigning them to a call operator or system in order to sell a unit, conducting a reverse auction in which a person or system reduces the indicated price of a unit over time and in which a producer or system reduces the preliminary available quantity, the reverse auction is concluded at the time of the preliminary available quantity is reduced to a pre-determined number, such as zero, with the price at the conclusion being stored in an auction database, wherein the preliminary available quantity is reduced based at least partly on one or more preliminary indicators associated with a call/caller, such as the time of the acceptance of the call in the call record versus the timing of the auction, which indicator(s) occur before a sale of a unit is completed/confirmed.
According to a second aspect of the disclosure there is provided a computer system for conducting a reverse auction of units, the system comprising a processor, a memory including an allocation database, an auction database, and a call database, a telephony system, a display, the allocation database containing a preliminary available quantity indicative of the number of units provided in an auction, the telephony system being configured to record the time at which a call is received and the number which was dialled in a call record in the call database, and configured to place each caller into a queue assigning them to a call operator or system in order to sell a unit, the processor configured to display a price on the display and to reduce the displayed price over time and to reduce the preliminary available quantity, and to determine when the preliminary available quantity is reduced to a pre-determined number, such as zero, to store the displayed price at that time in the auction database, and to prevent new telephone call to the telephony system being entered into the auction wherein the system reduces the preliminary available quantity based at least partly on one or more preliminary indicators associated with a call/caller, such as the time of the acceptance of the call in the call record versus the timing of the auction, which indicators occur before a sale of a unit is finalised.
According to a third aspect of the disclosure there is provided a method of selling units on television by reverse auction comprising the steps of displaying a unit for sale on television along with an initial price and the number of the units available for sale in the auction, allowing telephone calls to be made to take part in the auction, the displayed available quantity being reduced when it is believed a caller has given sufficient indications that a sale is likely or has occurred, reducing the displayed price for the unit to encourage more callers to reduce the television time taken up by the auction and concluding the auction when the displayed available quantity reaches zero.
According to a fourth aspect of the disclosure there is provided a method of conducting an internet based reverse auction for selling units where the reverse auction is transmitted to users on a medium, the method comprising the steps of providing a number of units for sale and storing a preliminary available quantity in an allocation database initially indicative of the number provided for sale, providing a website purchasing facility to which orders from users can be placed to enter the reverse auction, recording the time at which one or more orders were received on the telephone number in a call record in a call database, placing each caller into a queue and assigning them to a call operator or system in order to sell a unit, conducting a reverse auction in which a person or system reduces the indicated price of a unit over time and in which a producer or system reduces the preliminary available quantity, the reverse auction is concluded at the time of the preliminary available quantity is reduced to a pre-determined number, such as zero, with the price at the conclusion being stored in an auction database, wherein the preliminary available quantity is reduced based at least partly on one or more preliminary indicators associated with a call/caller, such as the time of the acceptance of the order in the call record versus the timing of the auction, which indicator(s) may occur before a sale of a unit is completed/confirmed.
In one embodiment, the order in which calls are put through to the call operator or system is dependent on the stored time on the call record and/or wherein the price at which a unit is sold is determined from the price at the conclusion stored in the auction database.
In one embodiment, the method may comprise the step of prompting each caller to enter a piece of data, optionally before entering them into the queue, and storing that data on the call record. The call may be placed into the queue is dependent on the data entered and/or one preliminary indicator comprises the data entered and is stored in the call record and/or one preliminary indicator comprises the time that the data is entered and stored in the call record.
In one embodiment, the prompting step prompts the user to enter a number on their telephone and where one or more numbers may be taken as a preliminary indicator and zero, one or more numbers are taken to not be a preliminary indicator.
In one embodiment, the number of units provided and a final allocation is also stored in the allocation database, the final allocation is increased whenever a final sale is completed, the system determining whether a sale can be made by determining if the allocation is still below the numbers of units provided. In another embodiment, the method comprises the step of checking that a preliminary indicator corresponding to that call has already resulted in a reduction of the preliminary availability and if not reducing the preliminary available quantity, whenever the final allocation is increased in response to the allocation increase and/or the step of generating an order record whenever a sale is confirmed, the order record including payment details.
In one embodiment, both registered and unregistered callers may take part in the auction.
In one embodiment, the method includes the step of determining the telephone number from which a call has been made and comparing this to a customer database of registered users, where the comparison provides a match allocating the stored customer details to the caller and/or the step of storing events such as preliminary indicators, initial and final price and/or number sold in a game database. In another embodiment, if there is no match the call operator or system selling the unit to the caller takes details of the caller and enters them along with their telephone number into the customer database for future use and/or events associated with an individual caller are stored in the game database linked to that caller such as in the call database or the customer database, and wherein previously stored data may be recalled when a caller is identified and/or one preliminary indicator comprises a comparison of one or more events in the auction with historical events in the game database and/or wherein one preliminary indicator comprises an identified callers stored events in the game database such as where a caller is found to have high/frequent historical spending patterns.
In one embodiment, in the event of there being more callers giving preliminary indicators than available units, the callers with the earlier times on their call record are sold the units or the callers who gave appropriate preliminary indicators are sold the units and when there are more callers who gave the appropriate preliminary indicator than there are available units, the callers who gave the appropriate indicator and have the earlier stored time are sold the units.
In one embodiment, where the product that was part of the auction at the time the caller called is also stored in the call database and when put through to the operator or system the unit offered for sale to them is determined from the stored product in the call record. In another embodiment, the auction is used to sell a different product and the different product is stored in the call database for a new caller after the preliminary available quantity has dropped to the predetermined number, in one embodiment, before the completion of all sales or before any increase in the final allocation, and the same telephone number may be provided for calls from callers, including the new caller, to be placed to enter the reverse auction for the different product as was provided for the first product.
In one embodiment, one of the numbers constitutes confirmation of an intent to buy the product in the auction. In another embodiment, the preliminary available quantity will not be reduced unless the correct number of the keypad has been pressed by a caller or the caller subsequently went on to place an order.
In one embodiment, orders can be placed by internet as well as by telephone. In another embodiment, the auction is transmitted over the internet and also maybe be transmitted by another medium such as television and/or the act of a user notifying intent to buy an auction unit on the internet such as by placing it in a shopping cart may comprise a preliminary indicator and/or may result in the final allocation being increased.
In one embodiment, one or more callers who were unsuccessful in the auction are called back after the auction using their determined telephone number to make a further sale or to have details taken. In another embodiment, callers are called back or not called back based on one or more preliminary indicator corresponding to their call during the auction and/or one or more callers who were unsuccessful in the auction are identified by matching call records to order records and removing those that match, from a list to be called back and//or the order records are matched to call records by generating a unique number for each call and storing this in both records.
In one embodiment, the order records are matched to call records by matching the order record to data in the customer database and using the stored telephone number in the customer database corresponding to that data to match the data with a call record in which that telephone number was recorded, and then tagging that call record to the order record.
In one embodiment, the steps of a person or a system requesting a reduction in the preliminary available quantity and determining whether the request reduction can be made by comparing the requested reduction with a maximum possible sold quantity and not allowing a reduction in number which would reduce the available preliminary quantity to a number below the starting value less the maximum possible sold quantity. In one embodiment, the reduction requested would reduce the preliminary quantity to below the maximum possible sold quantity, the quantity is instead reduced to the starting value less the maximum possible sold quantity and/or the maximum value is calculated by adding together the total number of calls received with any website orders and/or any additional units bought by a caller who has gone through the sales process
In one embodiment, the price is frozen once the displayed available quantity has reached zero and all the units in the auction are sold at the frozen price and/or comprising the step providing information concerning the auction on a website substantially simultaneously as on television and allow entries into the auction to be made from the internet.
Embodiments of the disclosure will now be described, by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings.